Burnout
by ncfan
Summary: -Penelope- She was a Ravenclaw. She was supposed to be clever. But she wouldn't die a Ravenclaw. She would die Penelope Clearwater. Second installment of the 'Prodigal Son' series.


**Characters**: Penelope**  
Summary**: She was a Ravenclaw. She was supposed to be clever. But she wouldn't die a Ravenclaw. She would die Penelope Clearwater.**  
Pairings**: Percy x Penelope**  
Author's Note**: Penelope, one of those faceless characters that I so adore writing about. Sadly, Rowling does not disclose her fate, and being who I am, I ended up coming up with this. Anyway, here is the second installment of the 'Prodigal Son' series.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own _Harry Potter_.

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She had never possessed any great skill with Apparition. In fact, she had failed the test when it was administered at Hogwarts, so miserably that the examiners present steadfastly refused to allow her to take it again, for fear she'd splinch herself even worse than she'd already had. Percy had suggested to Penelope, once or twice after they had concluded their schooling, that she hire a private tutor to teach her how to Apparate.

Now, staring down two grim wizards with their wands drawn and trained on her at a bus stop just outside of Lincoln, Penelope wished dearly that she had listened to him.

Again, Penelope found herself silently curing these 'Snatchers' on their sense of timing. Had they just waited five minutes more, the bus would have arrived and Penelope, who no more had access to a broomstick (Penelope could fly decently; it was just that she had never seen much use for flying before now; Ravenclaw wisdom didn't always necessarily equate to common sense) than she had a license to Apparate, would have been on the bus making her way south towards London. From there, she would have met up with five other Muggle-born witches and wizards to take a portkey to relative safety in Canada (Wizarding Britain and Wizarding Canada were considered two separate nations and had no extradition treaties with each other).

Penelope had a feeling that there was a very important appointment that she wouldn't be making today. Or ever.

Her eyes, straining in the gray early morning to focus, darted tensely back and forth between the two wizards. In vain, she attempted to search her mind for a way out of this, and couldn't find any solution. They knew she was a Muggle-born witch; they were set on taking her back to the Ministry of Magic (begrudgingly, Penelope congratulated Pius Thicknesse; he'd only been in power for a week, and apparently, he moved _fast_); they weren't going to just let her go and walk away. Not without a fight.

_All my dreams, torn asunder_… With a bitter twist of the lips, Penelope quoted her grandfather's favorite melodramatic saying and remembered. She had been so excited when she received her letter from Hogwarts, staring at the acid green ink in fascination and reaching out tentatively to stroke the barn owl that had brought the letter; the man in strange clothes who had arrived at her family's house in Lincoln just minutes after the owl had laughed kindly at her curiosity.

Penelope had been first and foremost focused on her schoolwork (she had absolutely _convinced _herself that she was going to get elected to the House of Commons before she turned thirty), but she had also been raised on children's storybooks with fantastical settings (_Lord of the Rings_ and _The Hobbit _in particular) and the idea that magic was real… Well, that was more than Penelope Clearwater, a not-so-ordinary girl from Lincoln, had ever hoped for. It made so much sense; Penelope _knew_ there had to be a reason the phone got staticky every time she used it!

Going to Diagon Alley was incredible. Going to Gringotts to retrieve the money she'd been allotted as part of a program of financial aid for poor and Muggle-born students had been equally incredible. The entire day, spent in a part of London Penelope had never known existed, she had wandered about, brown eyes huge in her face, drinking in everything she could with an almost desperate sort of eagerness, as though she had previously lived in the barren desert and was now coming to a lush and verdant tropical rainforest.

Buying her wand had been the best part of it all, though. Willow, twelve and a half inches with a phoenix feather core, or at least so the eerie man Ollivander had told her. Even in the dead of winter the wood felt pleasantly warm to the touch. It pulsated a little under her grasp, as though it was alive, and sometimes when Penelope hovered on the edge of sleep she thought she could hear it singing.

Now, the very people who had given Penelope her wand wanted to take it away from her.

She couldn't take that; she had _not_ been raised to be a doormat to anyone.

Penelope knew what would almost certainly become of her if she allowed herself to be taken, if she went back to the Ministry. It had only been a week, but she was already hearing the whispers; she was already worrying about friends who weren't returning her letters. She knew that her connection with the pure-blooded Weasley family would not help her here; Penelope had already heard of the Muggle-born spouses of pure-blooded witches and wizards being brought before the Commission.

Thoughts of the infamous Muggle-Born Registration Commission made Penelope cold to the bone with dread. Some had gone before the Commission willingly, reasoned that they had nothing to fear since they had nothing to hide; others had been brought there by force. No matter how they went though, willingly or in chains, one thing was always consistent; they never came back. Penelope was no fool; she could guess what happened to the witches and wizards who went before the Commission, could guess where they ended up.

Above everything, Penelope knew that she didn't want to go to Azkaban. She'd heard stories…

She would never go there.

During her stay at Hogwarts and even afterwards, Penelope had always done her best to live up to what she thought a Ravenclaw should be. Wise and witty and smart, always in control, always ready with another trick up her sleeve. She knew exactly what she was supposed to be: always the top of her class (and somehow that need to compete academically with her peers and surpass them had remained and burned in her even after she got work at the Ministry). Penelope knew she was supposed to be the one who had an answer for everything. The one who could find a solution to any problem that confronted her.

Penelope's Ravenclaw identity had taken an abrupt burnout as of two minutes ago. House identity had burned out like a falling star rocketing to earth, breaking up in the atmosphere.

"Well girlie?" The bigger of the two Snatchers, a burly man with a decidedly unkempt, neglected air about him, took a step forward, brandishing his thick-bodied wand aggressively and pointing it directly at her throat. "What's it going to be?"

Penelope hesitated, brushing a strand of long brown hair out of her face as she bit her lip, weighing her options one last time.

"It'll go better for you if you just come quietly, Miss."

That was a lie, and she knew it.

Penelope had never been much of one for fighting or physical confrontation. That area of expertise she had been more than happy to allow the Gryffindors to monopolize. There had been a time—and that time had been especially recent—when she had believed that she would never resort to violence to solve her problems or get out of a fix. Not ever.

That time was over.

As she stared won two wands wielded by gaunt, hungry men at a bus stop just outside of Lincoln, Penelope came to the realization that she was going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. She would either die here or in Azkaban, and Penelope would rather die than go to Azkaban. She would rather die than be told that she had stolen her wand, the wand Ollivander had given her, have it taken away from her, and watch it be snapped or given to someone "more worthy" of it than she. She would sooner die than have her humanity denied.

Penelope, as a Ravenclaw, had abhorred violence. But maybe it was time not to be the Ravenclaw-who-was, and instead by the Gryffindor-who-might-have-been. Brash and reckless, but ultimately brave enough to stare down darkness.

Her mind was drawn to Percy. She had promised him that when she got to London she would wait until he could find her, so they could say goodbye and make some last arrangements. Silently, Penelope apologized to Percy, knowing she would never be able to say the words to him in person. They weren't going to be seeing each other again.

"Come on." Penelope had to give these two some credit; they were clearly hoping they wouldn't have to force her to come with them. "No use fighting."

Penelope begged to differ.

She drew in a deep breath.

Today, she might—would—die. She wouldn't die a Ravenclaw. She wouldn't die a Gryffindor. She wouldn't die a Hufflepuff, a Slytherin, or any of those antiquated factions. She would die Penelope Clearwater, a Muggle-born witch who had burned out on House identity and didn't want to lose her humanity.

With burning eyes, Penelope drew her wand.

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Next up on the 'Prodigal Son' series we have _All the King's Horses_. I hope you all will read it when I get it up.


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